A Raccoon To Remember
by All Sight
Summary: Naofumi sneaks out of a celebration to go sleep, leaving Raphtalia by herself. Raphtalia proceeds to accidentally get drunk. Chaos ensues, including but not limited to pig theft, church wrecking and drunken confessions. Want more Raphumi fun? Join our discord: /gHX46ds


Naofumi sighed. "Another celebration," Naofumi muttered to himself. Despite this one actually being thrown in his favor for saving yet another town from yet another threat, he couldn't help but feel unwelcome at these types of parties. He was always the odd man out from these things, all because he was landed with the wrong "weapon". It all just felt like a waste of time to him now.

_Tch._ He was already in a bad mood, and the party had barely started. Maybe he'd just sneak out, hit the sack early. He was sure no one would notice if he just left. That sounded like a good idea. Maybe a bit of rest would help fix his sour mood.

Yet, as he was walking out from the celebration, he couldn't help but think he was forgetting something. But for the life of him, he couldn't remember what.

_Meanwhile,_

"Naofumi? Naofumi where'd you go?"

A very confused raccoon demi-human had certainly noticed the Shield Hero's early absence, and was currently searching for him.

"That moody jerk left me here didn't he?" Raphtalia had pretty much come to the conclusion that Naofumi was indeed nowhere at the party.

"I swear, he always does this. Anyone shows him an inch of kindness he treats it like some sort of foreign object."

_It was too late for this,_ she thought with a sigh,_ I might as well just get something sweet and leave as well._ That guy at the counter looked like he was serving nice drinks. Maybe she'd get some sweetened juice or something.

Raphtalia sat down at the bar (completely oblivious to what a bar is), as the bartender came up to her.

"Well hello there miss. What can I get you today?"

"Something sweet." Raphtalia replied.

"You got it miss."

After pouring her a drink, the barkeep slid it across the counter to her.

"Here, on the house for The Savior and his party."

"Thanks!"

As she gulped down the drink, she couldn't help but notice the weird aftertaste it had. Something seemed off about this juice...but then again, it did taste really sweet... Maybe she'd just get one more...

_A few hours later..._

A rising sun awoke Naofumi from his rest. _Hm, seems I slept a lot longer than intended,_ he thought. Sometimes, he missed the simpler things he had back in Japan, like alarm clocks. _Whatever, might as well get an early start on the day._

"Now to wake up Raph-wait where's Raphtalia?" Naofumi searched the bed next to his for his companion, but he found no hide nor hair of his raccoon-eared friend. He scrambled his sleep-addled brain for clues as to where she might have gone off to, only to realize...

...

_...Shit, I left her alone at the party._

He threw on his clothes and rushed out the door to the local tavern the celebration had been held at. Almost immediately after bursting the door open to bar did he hear his name being called by the bartender.

"Ah, Mr. Shield Hero! I've been expecting you."

Slightly taken aback by the arupt call-out, Naofumi came to the logical conclusion that this most likely had something to do with Raphtalia.

"Is this about my companion?"

"Ah, as sharp as ever." The Barkeep replied. "Yes, this would have to do with a certain raccoon-eared friend of yours."

"Alright, I'm listening." Naofumi sighed.

The Barkeep went on to explain how Raphtalia ordered a few drinks (much to Naofumi's dismay), ranted to the Barkeep for about an hour (though the barkeep wouldn't explain _what_ she was ranting about), and then, while his back was turned, managed to cast invisibility and snuck off before the Bartender could stop her.

"Ah great. Who knows where she could have run off to?"

"Well, if it's any help, I do recall her saying something about needing a couple of rings before she walked off. Why not check the local jewelers?"

" Sigh , I suppose that's as good a starting place as any. Thanks for the help."

"Don't mention it. I hope you find your companion Shield Hero."

_I hope I do too_ Naofumi thought to himself.

When Naofumi arrived at the jewelers, it was a site to behold. Trash cans were littered all over the place, garbage strewn around at seemingly random, half eaten foods laying in the dirt.

"YOU!"

Out of nowhere, Naofumi saw a very angry looking man coming towards him.

"This is your fault!"

"My fault?" Naofumi REALLY hoped this hadn't been-

"What kind of hero can't even keep his own slave from raiding my trash cans like a goddamn animal?"

_Aaaand there it was._

"Do you know why she might have attacked your trash, or where she went?"

"Maybe if you help me clean it up, I might consider explaining."

_Raphtalia, I swear to god, when I find you._

"Fine."

After mopping up much debris, broken jewelry and half eaten foods (oh how he prayed Raph hadn't been eating this trash), the Jeweler stated that he had recently thrown out two "Love Charm" rings that had been made with the wrong type of gemstones. He explained that, considering their disappearance, that's likely what they were after.

"Alright, thank you for the information. Sorry about the mess."

"Just make sure you keep that raccoon under control."

_Well what now?_ Naofumi thought. That was his only lead.

Or, well, it **had** been, until he overheard some woman screaming about a stolen pig.

"Excuse me miss, have you happened to see a raccoon demi-human running about?"

"You mean that filthy thief that stole my pig?! Yeah I saw her! Running off to the butcher's shouting something about the pig 'eating her ring'!"

_This day is just getting worse and worse._

"Alright thank you miss-"

"Hey! Are YOU gonna pay for that pig?" The farmer cut him off, tone demanding. Begrudgingly, Naofumi pulled out a few silver coins and rushed off to the butchers.

Only as he was running off did he hear the farmer shout:

"Goddamn it, that rat stole my crops too!"

_Raph, why are you like this._

Finally, he arrived at the butcher's. All this running about was getting tiresome. He walked into the building and saw a large, somewhat portly man behind the counter.

"Ah hey there Savior, what can I get you today?"

"Information. Have you seen my-"

"Ah, you mean your demi-human companion? Yeah I saw them. Came in here crying about how this pig "ruined her future", and demanded I cut it open. She didn't pay me, but she let me keep half of the pig as "compensation" and grabbed the rest."

"Ugh, Do you know where she went next?"

"She mentioned needing flowers if I recall. I don't believe we have a flower shop in town, but I think the church sells some. Why not check there?"

Naofumi held his face in his hands. This was getting him nowhere. It was all just running around trying to piece together what the hell Raphtalia was planning. He just prayed to whatever god would listen that she'd be at the church.

_I didn't get enough sleep for this._

Naofumi burst open the doors to the church, fed up with messing around.

"HAS ANYONE SEEN MY RACCOON?!"

His bellow greatly shocked the priestess there, praying to god this wasn't another madman come to screech about marriage and a pig. It took her a couple of seconds to process what he actually said.

"Uh y-yes, I-I've seen her. She came in here yelling about holding a wedding, b-but when I told her we couldn't just hold a ceremony on such notice, she wrecked the place, grabbed some flowers and ran off."

Naofumi could swear he felt a migraine coming on.

"Alright, let me guess, I clean up her mess, you'll tell me where she is right?"

"W-well y-you don't have-"

The priestess's words fell on deaf ears as Naofumi began to clean up the debris and trash, to used to today's procedure to care about what the woman was actually saying.

"Alright, that's the last of it. Now, where'd she go?"

"Oh, um, w-well, I don't know where she went p-persay, but I-I saw a cloud of smoke coming from the distance right there." She pointed out the window to a large tree that had faint gray clouds rising above it.

"Thank you for your time."

"N-no problem, thanks for cleaning!"

Finally, it felt like Naofumi was getting to the end of this nightmare. As he walked towards the tree, he tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. She gathered rings, flowers, and food for a "wedding" as he recalled from the priestess. The smoke was likely cause by her cooking (he was amazed that tree wasn't on fire right now if he was being honest, she must have sobered up a bit). The only problem was, who was the wedding for? Did she meet someone or was she playing matchmaker?

As Naofumi was pondering these thoughts, he didn't realize how close he'd gotten to the tree, and only barely was pulled out of it by:

"Naofumish! He'sh here!"

His thoughts were interrupted by a wild tackle of a hug that sent him to the ground.

"Naofumi! Lesh get married!"

_Wait what?_

As Naofumi stared behind the very snuggly raccoon woman, he saw a whole picnic set up, prepared food, flowers in the center, and two small boxes on both the left and the right. Even in a drunken state, you could see this was prepared with the utmost care.

"Naofumish alwaysh ignoring my love. Sometimes, he'sh sho thick-headed when it comesh to feelings. Sho I thought 'Ifs I shet up a wedding, he might notish my feelings...' "

As her sentence dragged on, it seemed Raphtalia was finally feeling the exhaustion from her eccentric activities today. Her eyelids started drooping, and soon, she was fast asleep.

For the first time since the day started, Naofumi felt his gaze soften. Even if she was drunk out of her mind, she did the best she could to set this whole thing up. That was quite admirable, he had to admit.

He couldn't believe he never noticed her feelings until now.

_I guess I closed myself off even more than I thought._

As of right now, Naofumi didn't know if he reciprocated those feelings. This would certainly take no small amount of time to figure out on his part. He knew he cared about Raphtalia. Probably more so than anyone else he's ever cared about before. He just didn't know how far that went just yet.

He rested his back on the greak oak tree, and patted the now sleeping raccoon-eared brunette on his lap, and shut his eyes, enjoying the peaceful serenity...

...

...

It was only then that he remembered he had a slave tracker.

...

...

"MOTHERFU-"


End file.
